There's a side theory going around that Loki's plan the entire time was to get back to Asgard. With the bridge gone, that means he needed the cube and another Asgardian. Not only does that actually explain the "safety" in the portal device, but it also explains why he allowed Fury to run around and collect everyone together.

I watched Avengers myself and I thought it was a very well made game.Joss Wheadon managed to pull it off flawlessly.No one ever thought it could be done,guess we were wrong.I never doubted him for one second.

Okay, so I think is a great place to ask. Who do you want in the next Avengers? Try & keep to about four or five cause any more and I think it might ruin the group dynamic.For me it has to be Antman/Giantman, The Wasp, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and lastly the Vision.

To answer Susan's question of how New York keeps getting rebuilt after every major superhero battle, I offer two words... DAMAGE CONTROL. Look it up! Seriously, I laughed out loud when I read that mini-series way back when.

The new Parker's Ultimate verse. not 616. In 616, he's still a part of the Avengers, and the FF, now called the Future Foundation since F4 would be numerically incorrect after Johnny died.

I think Batman is about the only part of DC that translates well to the real world, since he's on the street, no powers, just a bunch of billion-dollar experimental toys. In this respect he's a bit like Tony Stark only with a kevlar body suit instead of a gold-titanium alloy chasis. Every other DC hero is either a god, alien, or wizard. There is no local deus ex machina to create new characters like Marvel's "What if they're just born that way?" So there's little conflict with the world around them, just the threat of the month.

At this point Marvel has been playing a bit on the "We're sick of you destroying our cities in your huge battles". The whole civil war event was a result of this, the government wanting the identities of every powered individual in order to sanction their activities or lock them away. If there is a 3rd Avengers I would not mind seeing this as the major conflict, maybe putting Hammer Inc at the forefront of registration activities.

If the Vision is added to the roster, he should play out like Dr Manhattan, detached from normal society as well as his own team and only showing emotion when his loved one - Wanda Maximoff - is in the same room. Which again brings the whole "Who has the rights to the Magneto twins"? question to light.

On the Loki theory, I'm thinking that it may actually follow the comics in a way, where he's not necessarily evil, just manipulating all these unique individuals for the greater good. In causing an event that only the Avengers could handle Loki helped create a defense against Thanos.

On the Loki theory, I'm thinking that it may actually follow the comics in a way, where he's not necessarily evil, just manipulating all these unique individuals for the greater good. In causing an event that only the Avengers could handle Loki helped create a defense against Thanos.

Maybe it was just me, but I thought I sensed just a little bit of genuine remorse and hopelessness in Loki at the end - I know he tricked Thor on a couple of occasions with that very gambit, but I think by the end he really was starting to come around.

He really is a lost soul, trying to find a sense of identity and purpose in the wake of discovering he's not who he's been told he is and his father is not really and so on. Most kids just go on a backpacking tour of India to find themselves and come back walking barefoot, eating nothing but fruit and seeds and call themselves "Flower Princess Muffinbaker" for a few months to work out the angst. Loki is a demigod, so his "angry at my dad" phase is a little more... destructive.

Given his upbringing, I'm not sure he can be entirely evil. I mean, even Vader has a redemption path.

I loved The Avengers, it's everything I like in a superhero movie. Uplifting and entertaining with good action and quirky but nevertheless likeable characters. It's also everything that the 'Dark Knight' movies are not, which probably is why I'm kinda mixed about those movies and honestly don't much care about the latest upcoming one. The Christopher Nolan movies just seem annoyingly dark and depressing to me as well as just over-much serious for a world where a guy dresses up like a bat to fight crime. It's a silly premise being taken all too seriously and I honestly feel that were you to take the element of 'Batman' out of the movies entirely they'd probably be better as a result.

Meanwhile you just couldn't do the same with a movie like this. It's ridiculous, over-the-top, action-fantasy fun! The sort of movie you can watch and enjoy, smiling almost the entire time.

...Which isn't to say I don't think superhero movies can't be serious or take themselves seriously, I'm just of the opinion there needs to be 'some' brevity or vague acknowledgement of the absurdity of it all. I don't get that from the dark knight movies, they're all doom, gloom, and no fun allowed. Just not quite what I'm looking for when I want to watch this sort of movie.

At the top are the four marks of the compass. Infinity and Oblivion, Eternity and Death.

Beyond THAT is Living Tribunal. He's essentially the natural law itself given a personality. He's the manager of the multiverse, he makes sure things run the way they are meant to run.

One Above All is the nickname given to the Creator. He doesn't do much... Living Tribunal kinda runs the place, so he's sort of like the the guy who created the company and let someone else run it...

EDIT:

Miguel O'Hara is the Spider Man in the year 2099. He was a scientist for a large company called Alchemax working on a super soldier-type program. He figured Spider Man would be a good power set to copy for an army of company controlled operatives. He had failed.

He tried to quit (because boss is a douchebag), but his boss sneaks a drug into his system. It's highly addictive and only Alchemax can sell it legally. He sneaks into his lab and uses his genetic rewriting machine on himself using his own old genetic code (before being addicted) to reset the thing. One of his rivals messed with the controls and added the Spider gene to it as well. Big explosion, powers.

He IS half Mexican, but he looks pretty much Caucasian just because of the year and how the genetic drift has worked.

And when Bruce got his back broken, he was replaced by Jean Paul (Azrael). When he got lost in time, he was replaced by Dick Grayson (first Robin).

Btw, on the subject of Black Widow, I DO think she was psychologically affected by the Hulk attack. It was hearing about Clint that snapped her out of it, and the reason she WANTS to go whoop some ass.

blackrave:Ok, I missed something?Where Thor came from?How he returned back to Earth?That's one thing that bugs me.

Loki mentions something to the effect of wondering how much energy their father had to store up to send Thor to Earth. The bridge just happened to be their fastest/easiest method of travel.

The implication was two fold.

One, ODIN had to sent him and spent lots of energy to do it.

Two, it was a one way trip. He needed the Cube to come back.

It was a nice set up, because it explains how he could feel trapped in Asgard after destroying the bridge and STILL be here for Avengers. It also sets him back exactly where he was for Thor 2 (after Avengers he's still back home, still no means to get back to Midgard without his father's help and risking the Cube being away from the safety of the Vault).

I loved the movie, but to expand on something Steve said I thought the ending battle lacked... Not so much focus, but a real genuine sense of urgency or desperation. When the Chitauri come down from the portal and start attacking New York city I didn't feel there was much weight or gravitas behind the attack. Almost all of the real destruction is against buildings and there isn't a single civilian death seen. The lasers all manage to hit the area around any actual people. While I'm sure there were people in some of the buildings that ended up ravaged, you never see them and you never think 'Yes, these creatures are decimating the city and the population.' Even at the end with the pan across the news stations reporting on the incident, just a line of dialogue talking about the causalities or something would have made it a little more involving, at least for me.

He reached in and found the most important, unique element in each character, and used it to provide them each with a brilliant, shining moment. And, to all those who might complain that the story itself is a bit generic, that's exactly why.

In plenty of good movies, the story is incredibly flavorful... but, to balance that, the characters aren't anything too memorable. We remember then as their function in the story, and not much else. The characters are devices that drive the compelling, intricate story forward. And that works in those particular types of stories.

In a lot of Joss Whedon work, the characters are the story. The events of the plot are just devices used to reveal aspects of the compelling, intricate characters. You get attached to (at least one or two of) the characters because they're so authentic and attachable.

And the beauty of it all is that's what comics are about! Even comic writers forget this. Most folks, deep down, don't give a rip about the storylines themselves. They buy the comics because, love or hate, they're invested in the characters. I don't give a crap about how cloning or time travel are going to impact the comic universe, I just want to know how my favorite character is going to come out of all of this.

So it is with Avengers. I don't know a thing about the invading army they fought. I'm not even entirely sure I could construct a timeline of the movie's events. But I remember how I felt about each of the characters. When they were victorious, I felt it. Not because the plot told me it was a victory, but because I was feeling their victory.

I disagree with Susan though, I do feel that Loki's taunt did get to Black Widow. I feel she was very much in control but that she wasn't expecting him to have access to that knowledge of her past. She recovered very quickly but she was IMHO cut by what he said.

I think part of my problem with the Chiturai (spelling?) was that I never got a feel for them as a race, they were just the ultimate form of mooks. Disposable and impossible to actually feel anything for.

I came out of the film really liking Cap. I actually really didn't like the Captain America movie, it did feel really stretched to me. But I feel in this film with the character dynamic he became much more interesting and having that down to earth, this is the right thing to do, sometimes you need to take one for the team guy was really interesting to me.

I will be very interested to see what happens in the next Avenger film.

From what Joss Wheadon has said about an Avengers Sequel the intent would be to have a more personal feel and not be on the same epic scale. To me this means that the Avengers Seqel wont lead strait into Thanos just yet. If they do an Ant-Man movie then the Avengers sequel is doing an Ultron style film and that would be more personal. I think Thanos will be used in a Guardians of the Galaxy Movie first prior to the Avengers.

Rassmusseum:Talking about the meme with Cobie Smulders, I'm pretty sure that's a nod to her character Robin Scherbatsky. It's not really clear if you knew that or not just from listening to this.

was pretty clear she didn't, just that, and not with the "aunt" factor of the char in the movie

No, no clue...can you fill me in?

On the show "How i met your mother" Bob Saget starts every episode with telling his children how he supposedly met his wife (their mother) and usually starts along the lines of in-that-time-we-did-that in the summer of 2012 blabla and he refers to Cobie Smulders's character as aunt Robin.

watch 1 episode and you'll see, harder to type it out but couldn't find a clip fast enough

was pretty clear she didn't, just that, and not with the "aunt" factor of the char in the movie

No, no clue...can you fill me in?

On the show "How i met your mother" Bob Saget starts every episode with telling his children how he supposedly met his wife (their mother) and usually starts along the lines of in-that-time-we-did-that in the summer of 2012 blabla and he refers to Cobie Smulders's character as aunt Robin.

watch 1 episode and you'll see, harder to type it out but couldn't find a clip fast enough

I remember I squealed with joy when I saw Spiderman's cameo on the third act. My friend missed it, though. She's pretty pissed at herself (Spoilers, watch out):

At any rate, the one time I was very happy to go to the movies was when I watched Enchanted. I went a couple of weeks/months after its official release and the place was empty. And I mean not a single soul was there. I sat at the very back, stretched out and enjoyed the movie. I was able to laugh out loud (Something I don't usually do) and there were no dumb kids asking dumb questions or people trying to spoil your experience. Or people.

Maybe that's why I love that movie so much. I still want to recreate that experience but...that's just a silly dream. *Sigh*

When I watched The Avengers, I had the misfortune to sit around a guy who liked to fart like there was no tomorrow. I have no freakin' clue where he was; behind me, next to me, in front of me, I DON'T KNOW! But I kept getting these mysterious whiffs...while eating my popcorn. I tried so hard to ignore it and enjoy the movie, but I couldn't. Now, every time I think of that one time I watched The Avengers, I think of farts.

That's why I hate the movies. And people. And both at the same time. Ugh.

[Also, um, not to sound like an ass but it would be nice if you guys kept the noise into consideration. Let me explain before I get stoned (As in attacked, not high).

At some point during the podcat, you guys get serious (YEAH, I KNOW!) and the volume goes down. Same thing when that one guy that's far away from a microphone starts speaking (I couldn't make it who it was because of that). So I raise my volume in order to hear what's going on. Then BOOM! LOUD LAUGHTER, YELLING AND SCREAMING! It startles me so I lower the volume, then more quiet voices then LOUD and so on.

I know that's probably impossible to control but...it happens in every podcat! I suppose I'm just ranting at this point, though... *Mumble mumble*]